


In The End It All Comes Back Around

by stevergrsno (noxlunate)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes Recovering, De-Serumed Steve Rogers, Disabled Character, M/M, SHIELD, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-07-29 16:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16267751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxlunate/pseuds/stevergrsno
Summary: “You’re being dramatic.” Natasha tells him, perched on the kitchen countertop, and like this, with her there and Steve leaning against the countertop next to her he has to look up at her. It gives him a strange sense of vertigo and he does his best to ignore it.“I think I’m being just the right amount of dramatic here, thanks.” Steve mutters, glaring at a spot on the refrigerator like it’s personally wronged him. He hates this.Hates it. The 21st century had been confusing enough when he’d had a purpose. What the hell is he supposed to donow?“You think maybe this is a chance to be a normal person, Steve?” Natasha’s tone is strangely gentle. Steve hates it.“I think all this is is my chance to see what being sick is like in another century.”Or a story told in three parts: How Steve loses who he is and finds it again, how Steve finds Bucky and Bucky finds himself, and how they find who they are together.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Since when do I do WIPs? SINCE NOW. (actually since like years ago when I had a wip Gallavich fic, but like recently? SINCE NOW.) This should be 3 chapters so long as nothing throws a wrench in it and makes it longer. I'm staying pretty solid on the three thing though because I have most the second chapter done and the third one has been started and I for once semi-know where it's going! 
> 
> With that being said, I hope you read and enjoy!

When they drag Steve out of the ice every inch of him can still feel the crash, the cold seeping into his bones and the ache in his lungs.

After the Battle Of Manhattan the ache in his lungs is still there but it’s got less to do with crashing a plane into the arctic and a whole lot to do with his body’s new-old state.

 

“Wait,” He remembers saying, staring at Bruce Banner like he was speaking an alien language, “you’re saying my body’s just, what, _eating_ the serum?”

“Something like that. Your immune system thinks it’s something foreign, that it doesn’t belong.”

“The one time in my life that it decides to do its job and it’s _now._ Jesus christ.”

 

So that had been that. Steve spends a few months huddled up in a bare, lonely apartment in Manhattan courtesy of SHIELD, dealing with the fact that his body is slowly but surely breaking down the serum that kept him strong and healthy and he can feel himself fading away.

“You’re being dramatic.” Natasha tells him, perched on the kitchen countertop, and like this, with her there and Steve leaning against the countertop next to her he has to look up at her. It gives him a strange sense of vertigo and he does his best to ignore it.

“I think I’m being just the right amount of dramatic here, thanks.” Steve mutters, glaring at a spot on the refrigerator like it’s personally wronged him. He hates this. _Hates it._ The 21st century had been confusing enough when he’d had a purpose. What the hell is he supposed to do _now?_

“You think maybe this is a chance to be a normal person, Steve?” Natasha’s tone is strangely gentle. Steve _hates_ it.

“I think all this is is my chance to see what being sick is like in another century.” Steve says mulishly, turning his frown on the ceiling instead of the fridge. “At least in my own I woulda been a goner by thirty.”

Natasha looks a little like she wants to hug Steve and a little like she wants to strangle him. Steve, despite himself, grins a little at that. He’s been told at least a few times that he can inspire that sort of feeling pretty easily.

 

✮✮✮

 

Steve follows a routine for the first six months after the serum fades entirely.

He wakes up every morning in the same SHIELD appointed apartment and does his best to not look at anything too closely. If he does, he knows he’ll fixate on just how white the walls are, how shiny the appliances are, how _small_ the windows are and how quiet the place is.

If he looks at anything too closely, he will start to swear that he can hear himself echoing in the massive front room.

So he doesn’t look closely, not at _anything_. Instead, he pulls himself out of bed and stumbles to the kitchen to turn on the coffee pot, prefilled with grounds the night before (a part of the _routine.)_ He swallows a handful of pills while he waits and chases it with a piece of toast because if he doesn’t eat he knows that he’ll spend the day with his stomach rolling, the taste of bile in the back of his throat as his body tries to send his meds back up the way they came.

He drinks his coffee and pokes around on the tablet Tony had handed him like it was nothing, like it wasn’t information on the whole damn universe contained in one tiny 10 inch rectangle.

People keep telling him that there’s more than just wikipedia and it’s associated source links on the internet, but Steve doesn’t _care._ He’s still preoccupied clicking wikipedia link after wikipedia link, trying to figure out everything that’s happened the past 60 years, everything that’s _changed._

(Some days though, he doesn’t even bother with the history he missed while taking a sabbatical in the ocean. Some days he spends the half hour sitting on his fire escape, drinking his coffee, and clicking from the Mongolian empire to the American Revolution.)

The amount of information at his fingertips is mind boggling. It’s enough that it makes Steve feel like he’d somehow be negligent if he didn’t take advantage of it. He very carefully doesn’t think about how much it’d feel like he was betraying Bucky somehow, if he was presented with this opportunity, with a world of things straight out of Bucky’s novels and wildest dreams, if he had all of that and didn’t take advantage of it.

After, he goes for  _runs._ He starts with ten minutes a day, clutches the inhaler his twice doctor has given him, and puffs on it repeatedly. Ends up only making it a couple blocks the first time before he’s leaning against a building and sucking desperately on his inhaler, his hips and knees twinging with the pain. He’s nothing if not stubborn though, and the doctors keep insisting that there’s no reason he shouldn’t have a decent quality of life, even with his issues, so he keeps doing it. He gets up and drinks his coffee, and then he ventures out and runs until he can’t anymore, until his lungs are aching and his knees want to give out.

It gets better. Two blocks becomes three becomes five, becomes running all the way to Central Park and then collapsing on a bench and watching the people who trail past until he can get his body up and run back to the SHIELD apartment.

Natasha falls in to step as Steve approaches the park. Her hair is pulled up into a sloppy ponytail and in her leggings and t shirt she doesn’t look like she just helped save the world less than a year ago. She just looks like any other woman running in the park.

“Why on earth do you get up this early when there’s no world to save Steve?” She asks and Steve knows she’s going a little slower to keep pace with him. He feels grateful for it despite himself.

“I’m a morning person.” Steve says, flashes the kind of grin he knows infuriates those that are dragging their way through the early morning, miserable.

“You’re a freak of nature Rogers, serum or not.” Nat says with a shake of her head before she’s bumping her shoulder into Steve’s, saying “I’ll race ya.” and taking off.

Steve gives chase, yelling about how Nat’s a damn cheater and losing himself in the burn of muscles and the thrill of competing against another body.

Nat wins, but Steve goes home feeling lighter than normal, the ache in his muscles a good one.

 

✮✮✮

 

He sees a doctor every two weeks. Eventually, they say, he’ll be able to go less frequently, but until they know exactly how his body’s responding in the after effects of the serum and until his health is managed in a way the doctor’s deem acceptable then he gets to spend several hours every other Thursday stuck in a doctor’s office.

If he’s entirely honest, it’s not nearly as bad as he’d expected. He still wishes he had Bucky by his side to bitch about it to though.

Doctor Eliot, aka Doctor “Call Me Laura” is a sweet woman who runs her team with what Steve can only describe as a _gentle_ iron fist _._ Her hair is gray, her face lined from laughter, and she dresses in more floral and paisley than Steve’s seen when researching the 60s.

Steve’s a pretty huge fan.

“Alright, take some deep breaths.” Cold metal moves along Steve’s back and then over his chest and Doctor Laura pulls back, her eyes bright and crinkled around the edges in a way that makes her look pleased with whatever she’s heard. “Your lungs sound real good kid.”

She also calls Steve _kid._ It’s comforting after the past months of being treated like he’s some sort of old man.

She runs Steve through a few more tests, types some things into a computer and then throws his clothes back at him so he can change out of the hospital gown.

“Alright, I’m pretty confident at this point that there’s not going to be any catastrophic after effects of the serum. Height, weight, vision and hearing, it’s all leveled out and none of it seems about to change. As for your general health and quality of life, we’ll keep working on it, but I think we’ve got you in a place where you don’t need to be in my office every two weeks. Every other month should suffice as long as you keep taking your meds, and following your diet and physio.”

Steve breathes a sigh of relief, flashing a smile at Doctor Laura. “Trying to get rid of me Doc?”

“Because you’re not dying to see just a little less of me.”

“Maybe just _a little_ less.” Steve agrees.

“That’s what I thought. Now get out of my office Captain Rogers. Set an appointment for two months from now on your way out.”

 

✮✮✮

 

Stark offers Steve a place in the tower. It’s beautiful, it really is. Bigger than any place Steve’s ever lived before, with giant windows that let in light and shiny appliances and more bedrooms than Steve thinks he’d know what to do with.

He declines as politely as one can when it comes to Tony Stark and looks for a place in Brooklyn.

Tony still insists on helping him find the place, says “Listen Cap, I get that you’ve got an independent streak now that you’re the little engine that could again, but you’re basically a ghost. You don’t have a _credit score._ You barely know how to use the damn internet-”

“I know how to google, Tony. I even know how to edit my own wikipedia page.” Steve insists because he _does._ The future is, as far as Steve can tell, an absolute shit show, but at least when he wakes up at 2 in the morning and finds himself wondering who the president was in 1985 it’s just a google search away.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re real proud of you gramps, but let me help okay? I can make sure you don’t get scammed by some schmuck on craigslist.” Tony says, and Steve agrees despite himself.

Tony drags him to nine different places around Brooklyn and Steve is thankful despite initially being hesitant to accept the help . It wasn’t like he even knew what he wanted in a place in the first place, and the city he grew up in is so damn different that he barely even knows where to start.

Tony- or probably, more realistically, a very nice assistant of Tony’s has taken all the guesswork out of it. And to be entirely honest, it’s nice to have someone standing next to him as he attempts to figure out where the hell his new life is going to be.

He knows the moment he steps into the last one that it’s his.

“Yeah, I thought you might like this one Small Soldier.” Tony says as Steve walks around the apartment, taking it in.

It’s not overly big, because that had been the one thing Steve had asked for and Tony had respected that for roughly half the places he’s shown Steve so far. Steve just can’t imagine the thought of continuing to rattle around in a home that’s too big for him.

Light spills in through the large bay windows, exposed brick makes up one wall and the rest are bright white and worn enough that it doesn’t feel clinical. When Steve ventures into the rest of the apartment he finds a small, but cozy kitchen, a bathroom with a clawfoot tub and two modestly sized bedrooms. It’s big by Steve’s standards, but not so big that Steve doesn’t think he can fill it.

“I want this one.” He says once he’s made his way back to the living room where Tony’s fiddling around with something on a tablet.

“Great. I’ll have my people contact your people. Wait, my people are also your people. The place’ll be yours by Monday.”

 

Later, when Steve is climbing out of Tony Stark’s limo to go spend his last few nights in his SHIELD apartment, he squeezes Tony’s shoulder and says “Thank you,” with all the sincerity he can possibly muster.

Tony, just like Steve had thought (and possibly, because Steve Rogers is a little bit of a shit, just like he’d hoped) he would, looks incredibly uncomfortable.

“Don’t mention it. Seriously, _don’t_ mention it.”

 

✮✮✮

 

Natasha shows up at Steve’s Brooklyn apartment within six hours of Steve moving into it. Steve has no idea how she even _knows_ where he’s living, but he also doesn’t question it, especially not when she’s followed by Clint who’s carrying a stack of pizzas and has a dog trailing behind him.

“Lucky meet Steve, Steve meet Lucky. Lucky is _not_ Clint’s dog.” The way Natasha says it makes Steve very much think that Lucky is in fact Clint’s dog.

“Right. Not Clint’s dog. Just a dog he happens to have.” Steve agrees as he squats down to let the dog sniff his hands and then sinks his fingers into Lucky’s soft fur.

“Exactly.” Clint says as he drops the stack of pizzas on Steve’s floor and flops down next to it, “Do you seriously have no furniture yet?”

“Not until tomorrow.” Steve says as he settles down next to Clint and pulls out a greasy slice of meat lovers.

“The best tactician of our time. And you misalign your move in day and your furniture delivery day.” Natasha says, shaking her head at Steve as she uses Clint as a seat instead of deigning to join them on the floor.

Clint doesn’t seem to mind and instead just hands her a slice.

 

✮✮✮

 

SHIELD attempts to put Steve on a desk job. He spends a few months filing papers, making phone calls, analyzing reports and crunching numbers.

He feels like a glorified secretary.

Not that he has anything against secretaries, but it’s not for him. It leaves him antsy and unsatisfied and feeling incredibly fucking _lost_.  

They pull him off the desk job after the fourth fight with the copier when Nat perches herself atop it while Steve’s busy trying to kick it into submission and says “Y’know, not being a giant doesn’t mean you can’t be an actual agent.”

It’s enough to stop Steve from kicking the poor copier again as he stares at Nat like he’s waiting for the punchline.

“ _What_.”

“Your health’s more or less under control, right? You’ve gotten sick a few times and you’ve still got the lungs of an eighty year old lifetime smoker and the ears of, well, _Clint_ , but you’re not on the verge of dying or anything. I can’t see why we couldn’t get you off of filing duty with a little bit of training.” Natasha says, and then, with a glint in her eyes that means she’s about to say a truly, _truly_ horrible joke she continues, “Unless it’s true what they say that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

“You’re not as funny as you think you are, you know that?”

“I know. I’m much, much funnier.” Natasha says, looking smug.

Steve tries not to look as fond as he feels, but the warmth in Natasha’s eyes means he probably fails.

“So you want to, what, train me to be a field agent?” Steve asks, because if he doesn’t get them back on track they’re going to circle around Natasha’s horrible sense of humor at least a few times. She’s worse than Tony. She’s just a lot more subtle about it.

“Yep, pretty much.” Nat says, leaning back on her palms and blowing a bubble with her chewing gum. “I’ll probably make Agent 13 help me out. And Clint, of course. Maybe get Bobbi in on it when Clint’s not around.”

“I have no idea who anybody you just mentioned but Clint is.” Steve points out, because it’s _true._ Steve doesn’t know field agents, he knows his fellow pencil pushers. Even then he doesn’t really _know_ them.

God, but he’d love to get away from this damn desk.

“If you accept your reassignment then you’ll know everyone. I’m surprised there’s not a million agents clambering around your desk to get a word with Captain America, honestly.”

“There might have been an incident my first week. Just a small one. Barely even an incident. More of a minor blip than anything.” Steve says and then, because this is the best chance he’s had in awhile, “I want the training. If I have to spend the rest of my life filing paperwork I might snap and take out the whole office.”

“I figured.” Nat says, smile surprisingly warm, “People like us aren’t meant to sit around doing nothing, Rogers.”

 

✮✮✮

 

Sharon Carter reminds Steve of Peggy in all the ways that matter and Bobbi Morse is terrifying in ways that leave Steve flabbergasted and impressed.

Between the two of them and the not-so-loving ministrations of Nat, Steve finishes his first day of training feeling like he’s half dead on his feet and aching in ways even he didn’t think were possible.

“Come for a beer, Rogers?” Bobbi asks, a small smile curving her lips and a warmth to her now that she’s not wiping the mat with Steve. She’s still a little terrifying, but it’s a little less so now.

“You should. The least we can do is buy you a beer after we kicked your ass.” Sharon adds, and when her smile shows all her teeth it makes Steve feel a little bit like a fish faced with a shark. Steve’s starting to think that’s just the hallmark of a spy.

 

Steve goes with them for a drink. A drink turns into another, and then Sharon orders a series of shots and it’s as Steve is downing one in a string of what is probably too many of them that Bobbi asks “Shit, Rogers, is this your first time drinking since you were shrinkydinked?”

“Oooh Shrinky Dinks.” Sharon says brightly, swirling her shot around in its glass like it’s something fancy instead of cheap as shit whiskey. “We should show Rogers Shrinky Dinks. It’s vital to his knowledge as a twenty first century man.”

“I’m not sure I’d call it _vital.”_ Nat argues as she prods at Sharon’s drink until she drinks it like a normal human being.

“It’s _vital.”_ Sharon insists, and Steve squints a little, taking in the flush of her cheeks and the brightness of her eyes and realizes oh, yeah, she’s _definitely_ tipsy.

Natasha looks stone cold sober, and Bobbi seems exactly as she was twenty minutes ago before Sharon started passing out shots.

“ _Vital.”_ Sharon insists again and Steve, because he is very, _very_ sober nods solemnly.

(Steve is, maybe, possibly, just a little bit, _slightly_ drunk.)

“ _Vital_.” He agrees and smiles when Sharon loops an arm over his shoulders and tugs him into her side.

“You know, I always kind of figured that how Aunt Peg talked about you was just nostalgia, but you’re not just some overblown memory of a meatheaded army boytoy. You’re pretty alright Rogers.”

“Thanks.” Steve has the sudden desire to press his hands to his cheeks and feel where he’s smiling so hard, but instead he just leans into Sharon’s side and throws an arm around her, “You’re pretty alright too, Sharon.”

There’s a flash of a camera as Bobbi holds her phone up and Nat shakes her head and says, “So good that we’ve established everyone here is ‘pretty alright.’”

 

When Steve shows up for work the next morning with a pounding head and the urge to throw up every time he moves it’s to the sight of Sharon, sitting on his desk in a pair of oversized sunglasses and holding out a cup of coffee.

“When you fight like a SHIELD agent, and drink like a SHIELD agent, you also get hungover like a SHIELD agent.” Sharon says sagely as she shoves the blessed, divine, absolutely holy perfection that is a cup of coffee into Steve’s hands. Steve’s not sure if this is supposed to be words of wisdom delivered by a hungover guardian angel or what, and he honestly doesn’t care because he’s too busy burning his mouth on what he’s pretty sure is some sort of froofy mocha drink.

He _loves_ it. Sharon’s his new favorite.

Steve thinks he might be Sharon’s favorite too when he lets her spend the day curled in a chair behind his desk, napping and ignoring whatever it is her _actual_ job is.

 

✮✮✮

 

Steve gets cleared for more than desk duty on a bitterly cold day in December.

“I’m not sure I’m a covert ops kinda guy.” He says, breath steaming around him as he leans against the building next to Sharon.

She’s blowing her cigarette smoke away from him, but clutching at it like it’s a lifeline all the same. She insists she’s going to quit roughly every two weeks, and Steve just nods and mmhmms and agrees that she can definitely do it if she wants to.

She inevitably buys another pack and Steve’s fingers inevitably twitch with the memories of cigarettes passed back and forth on fire escapes and street corners and camp sites in the middle of Europe.

Even with the occasional vertigo of remembering another time there’s something incredibly reassuring about having Sharon as a friend. She reminds him of Peggy. And sometimes, in strange ways, she also makes him think of of Bucky.

More and more, when he looks at her he sees neither.

It gets a little easier every day not to compare the new important people in his life to the ones that are long since old or gone. Sometimes he feels guilty for it, but more often than not it feels like freedom.

“Do I seem like a covert ops kinda girl?” Sharon asks, stubbing her cigarette out beneath her boot and pressing against the wall like it might shield them from the wind a little better.

“Not one bit.” Steve says bluntly, shoving his hands deeper into the pockets of his wool coat, breathing deep until it feels like the ice is coating his lungs, sharp and painful and nothing like it had felt in his old body when he’d sucked in ice water. “You fight like a goddamn blunt instrument.”

Sharon fights like Peg had. She fights like she doesn’t know the size of her own body, like she can throw herself at a problem with brute force and _make it_ bend to her will.

Steve finds it incredible. But then again, Steve had found Peggy incredible the first time he watched her take down a soldier two times her size.

Carter women just have a certain charm to them, no matter what century they’re in.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky knows even as it leaves his mouth that it’s bullshit, but Bucky says a lot of things he knows are bullshit these days. The more Bucky becomes _Bucky_ , the more he’s pretty sure that guy was a goddamn idiot.
> 
> He’s even written it down in his notebook. _‘Bucky Barnes was a goddamn moron’_ is written just below _‘chocolate chip pancakes = good’_ and _‘steve’s cooking is just as terrible as you remember.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOOO I FINALLY GOT UP CHAPTER TWO. Now with 100x More Bucky.

He sees it on tv. The footage is grainy, hard to see clearly, but Steve knows- _he knows._ The goggles are knocked off and Steve can see his eyes and he fucking _knows._

“I need a jet to DC.”

“I’m in the middle of a giant pile of shit right now Rogers, call Stark and then get your ass down here. _Now.”_ Natasha snaps into the phone before the line goes dead again.

“I need a jet to DC.” Steve says yet again, the moment he hears the click of Tony answering.

“What? This isn’t a taxi service Rogers, you can’t just call up and demand a jet. I’m not your sugar daddy, and if I am I think I’m getting the raw end of the deal here Cap, really, I am.”

 _“Tony.”_ Steve presses the phone between his shoulder and ear, resisting the urge to slam his head into a wall. It’s a common urge when dealing with Tony Stark but Steve’s not sure he can handle the resulting headache right now. “Please. Just get me there. I don’t care if it’s by jet, or train, or fucking teleportation if you’ve got that, I just need to be there. Preferably hours ago.”

“Woah, woah, woah, capsicle, no need for the language. I know you’re doing the whole Bond, James Bond thing lately but you’ve still got an image to uphold. A car’ll be there in three minutes and then we’ll go wheels up when you get here.”

“ _We?”_

“Yes, _we_ , you think I’m gonna miss out a chance to go to DC and possibly annoy some senators, Cap?”

 

Bucky doesn’t show up again until there’s three helicarriers in the air and Steve’s got Tony, Nat, Maria, and Sam Wilson chattering on comms in his ear as they attempt to bring the fuckers down.

Fury keeps saying he wants a new Captain America, says it helps with fucking morale or something like that. For having known Sam Wilson for all of a few hours, Steve’s a little tempted to shove the shield at him just so that he doesn’t have to hear about it anymore.

For now though, it stays strapped to Steve’s back. He might not be a damn super soldier anymore but he’s still an agent and the shield is still his. He _earned it._

“Oh shit, Cap, I got some company. It’s your snuggle bear.” Tony says through the comms.

 

Steve drops down onto the hellicarier, landing crouched and trying to shake off the jarring ache the motion causes. He’s gotten used to it by now, gotten used to how the different aspects of his job are likely to leave him sore or aching, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t sometimes still hate this goddamn body.

He’s not entirely sure what his plan is here. He’d hoped that once he was faced with Bucky - _BuckyBuckyBucky-_ he’d know what to do.

Instinct, for once, doesn’t disappoint.

Before he’s even sure what he’s doing the shield is being whipped at the back of Bucky’s head and connecting with an audible _whap_ as  Bucky stumbles forward and turns on Steve.

And then something switches. It’s like the old Steve is bubbling up and out of him without any of his control as “James Buchanan Barnes, you stop this bullshit _right now, you goddamn asshole.”_ spills out of his mouth in a voice that reminds him _far_ too much of Mrs. Barnes. Jesus christ, he’s become the physical, 21st century embodiment of Sarah Rogers and Winifred Barnes combined. He’s going to have _so much_ to unpack with Doctor Anne when he goes into therapy next week.

Bucky stops, looking like he’s just been hit.

“Steve?” It comes out soft. _Confused._ Like Bucky hasn’t even got a clue what he’s saying and Steve wants to rush across this stupid helicarrier and fold him into his arms and also punch him in the face a little bit for going and dying on him and then showing back up like this.

“That’s me, bud.” He says instead of going with the option that would involve a lot of hugging and possible crying. “You wanna maybe stop fighting my friends out there and come with me?”

 

✮✮✮

 

The Asset is… The Asset is malfunctioning.

The Asset is _confused._

The Asset had been briefed for this mission. It had been given orders on what to do should it encounter hostiles. Should it find itself up against anything that might prevent the _mission_ from succeeding.

The Asset _had not_ been briefed on what to do when faced with 110 pounds of _Steve Rogers_.

_‘Steve. Steve Rogers. God you shithead- What the hell you doing here- What the hell are you doin’ in a place like this Rogers- You’re gonna catch a cold, stop hangin’ out the window like this mornin’s laundry- Whad’ya think you’re lookin at punk? Nothin just your ugly mug- Steve- Steve- SteveSteveSteve-’_

The Asset _knows_ him.

The Asset is sure now, that there was something missing in the brief because the mission parameters have suddenly been changed by one _Rogers, Steven Grant - artist, punk, what a fuckin_ **_asshole_** _._

“Yes.” The Asset says in response to _Steve Roger_ s’ command that he phrases as a question. It must be a command, because The Asset can feel it in it’s bones, the inevitably of following.

 

Later, when all is said and done and The Asset has failed one mission for the sake of the new-old mission, they put The Asset in a room.  It’s wrists are bound with some sort of cuffs that The Asset is sure it could break out of, and a large window is set into the wall that The Asset is sure people are gathered behind, peering into it’s room while it can’t see them.

 _Steve Rogers_ argues vehemently against this.

 _“You don’t need to cuff him, jesus fucking christ.”_ He spits out when they wrap the cuffs around The Assets wrists. And _“What the fuck, you can’t just lock him up in here!”_ when they lead him into the room, and then _“No fuck you, I’m not leaving him here alone.”_ when they try to get _Steve Rogers_ to leave the room they have decided to put The Asset in.

There is no chair, no cryo tube or medical suite set up so it must not be storage for The Asset, but there is also little point for an interrogation room. _Steve Rogers_ simply needs to ask and The Asset will answer to the best of its ability.

 _Steve Rogers_ is not asking any questions, instead he is sitting atop the table, legs swinging as he stares at The Asset.

“Bucky-” _Steve Rogers_ says and The Asset is opening its mouth to interrupt before it even thinks otherwise. Something about _Steve Rogers_ makes disobedience feel like the very opposite.

“That’s-” It pauses, working the words over in it’s mouth, “That’s me?”

There is something unreadable, yet wholly understandable in _Steve Rogers’_ face. _Hurt, fury, devastation._ The Asset has no idea when it has seen this on _Steve Rogers’_ face, but it knows that it has in the same way it knows that _Steve Rogers_ is _Steve Rogers_ and that _Steve Rogers_ is important beyond measure.

“Yeah. Yeah bud, that’s you.”

The Asset- _Bucky, it’s name is Bucky-_ nods, and wrenches it’s left arm to one side, snapping the cuffs apart so that it can slide it’s right hand into _Steve Rogers’_ and squeeze. “You were bigger…” It says, unsure, because that doesn’t feel quite right but it’s brain is a chaotic whirl of new information, more than outside sensory input could ever create.

_Bucky. BuckyBuckBucky. James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant. Barnes. Jamie. My Jamieboy. Don’t you dare die in this war James Buchanan Barnes, or else you’ll have to deal with me._

“Apparently it wasn’t permanent.” _Steve Rogers- Steve- Stevie-_ **_Steve_ ** says, sharp shoulders lifting in a shrug.

 

✮✮✮

 

It takes a few days, but the government’s in shambles, SHIELD is no longer, and Steve’s got some _damn good_ connections after the past couple years, so he manages to take Bucky home with a slightly less than astronomical amount of fuss.

It’s a strange sort of vertigo being jobless and knowing that the the organization he’s dedicated the past couple years of his life to was corrupted by HYDRA from the inside out, but he’s got more important things to worry about than that at the moment.

Bucky frowns when Steve tries to shove him into a cab, working on the logic that it might be a little easier to have a more private method of transportation for his assassin turned amnesiac (or is it the other way around?) best friend.

“Subway?” Bucky asks, one word encapsulating what Steve assumes is supposed to be a whole question while he stares at the open door of the cab.

“I figured you might want something a little less-” Steve doesn’t get a full sentence out, because Bucky is grabbing a hold of his hand and tugging him down the street and down the stairs into the station.

He herds Steve onto the train and plants them there like a tree, Steve positioned between him and the subway pole that Bucky holds onto with an unyielding metal hand.

If Steve doesn’t pay attention to the fact that Bucky’s hand is metal, his hair is nearly brushing his shoulders, and most their fellow passengers are holding smart phones then he could almost pretend it’s 1940 again.

He doesn’t. Pretending seems like a dangerous hole to fall into, especially when Bucky’s not quite Bucky anymore, when he doesn’t seem to remember much more than Steve’s name and that for some reason he deems Steve important.

 _It doesn’t matter._ Steve’s been trying to tell himself that for days now. It doesn’t matter what Bucky remembers, whether he remembers Steve entirely or not, it _doesn’t._ What matters is that he’s _alive_ , and that he needs Steve.

Bucky being back is enough.

God, Bucky being back is _everything._

 

✮✮✮

 

Time.

 _Time_ is apparently all Bucky’s brain needs to start mending itself, for the serum to start stitching together the holes and uncovering the memories that were wiped away so many times.

 _Time_ and _Steve Rogers._

It’s impossible _not_ to remember things when Steve is there, looking so much like he had in the Before that Bucky’s mind keeps throwing at him, leaving him shaking and gasping most times.

Steve presses cold hands to Bucky’s forehead and rubs them along his back when the memories are at their worst, playing through Bucky’s mind like a movie he doesn’t want to see.

“I don’t want these.” Bucky says once, his right hand wrapped tight around his left arm, hard like he wishes he could bruise it, hard like he wishes he could rip it off and throw it in the river where he’d never have to look at it and _remember_.

There’s so much blood on that arm. Sometimes he imagines it’s seeped into the metal plates where he can’t wash it off, that it’s seeped into _him_ and he aches with the knowledge that he can’t wash it clean.

“I know.” Steve says, softer than any of Bucky’s memories so far show him capable of being, but that experience in the past few weeks shows he is endlessly capable of. “It’s just the serum healing your brain.” He adds, his hand on Bucky’s shoulder somehow gentle despite the fact that Bucky knows it must _hurt._ Bucky has a goddamn knockoff running through his veins and somehow _his_ hasn’t proven faulty yet. Bucky never had a faulty body either though, not like Steve.

“Yeah, well, the serum can go take a hike.” Bucky grumbles, slumping a little until he can tip sideways and press his forehead into Steve’s boney shoulder, eyes closed to shut the world out. Everything is _Steve, Steve, Steve_ and Bucky settles into it.

“Mmh, sounds like a great idea. I bet without the serum this’d be a cakewalk to lug around.” Steve says, all sarcasm as he flicks at Bucky’s metal shoulder and then prods at Bucky’s collarbone where the scans show anchors for the arm.

Bucky makes a noise that might be a laugh if it didn’t have to fight it’s way out of a throat that’s too tight, too rough, too ragged.

“We’ll send the arm off with the serum.” He says, muffled by the cotton of Steve’s shirt, “We can wrap it up in a bow and send it to Stark Junior. I bet he’d love it.”

“It’d be like Christmas for him to get ahold of this thing.” Steve says, hand on Bucky’s arm like it isn’t a killing machine, like it couldn’t crush Steve’s fine bones to dust.

Steve slides it down the metal, dislodging Bucky’s hand around his wrist and replacing it with his own. He gives it a gentle squeeze, once and then twice and then waits a beat before letting go.

Bucky wishes Steve didn’t touch it so often.

Bucky wishes Steve didn’t let go.

 

✮✮✮

 

At first glance Steve looks exactly as Bucky remembers him being before Bucky shipped out and Steve signed up to be a goddamn science experiment. He is still sharp angles and a beak of a nose, a stubborn set to his jaw and thin bones that are sturdier than they have any right to be.

The man he’s been living with however is different in the corded muscles that make up his body, in the way he looks like he actually eats a good meal every once in awhile, the fine lines that are starting to form at the corners of his eyes, and in the sense of steadiness that seems to have come with this century.

Bucky’s not exactly sure what to do with this knowledge, this knowledge that Steve is Steve but he is also somehow changed. He hoards this knowledge though, the same way he hoards the memories of his mother when they come, the recognition that he likes ridiculous music that makes Steve gripe and trashy books he picks up on discount tables at bookstores, and the fact that he thinks pancakes are the only truly acceptable breakfast food.

 

“You think you’re the only one who’s different?” Steve asks once, when about a month and a half into it all Bucky says some dumb shit about not being Steve’s best friend anymore because he’s not the same person Steve remembers.

Bucky knows even as it leaves his mouth that it’s bullshit, but Bucky says a lot of things he knows are bullshit these days. The more Bucky becomes _Bucky,_ the more he’s pretty sure that guy was a goddamn idiot.

He’s even written it down in his notebook. _‘Bucky Barnes was a goddamn moron’_ is written just below _‘chocolate chip pancakes = good’_ and _‘steve’s cooking is just as terrible as you remember.’_

“It’s not the same and you know it Rogers.” Bucky says because apparently old Bucky was an idiot, but so is _current Bucky._

And also, maybe he wants Steve to prove him wrong.

“Look, pal, I’m not sayin that the shit we’ve been through has been anywhere close to the same, but you’re about as different from the you you were in 19fucking40 as I am, which to be honest isn’t as different as you think it is. For one thing, the original Bucky Barnes was also this much of a melodramatic asshole.”

“You’re real good at pep talks Steve, you know that?” Bucky asks, and Bucky still struggles with tone and the whole showing of emotion thing, but he’s pretty sure the sarcasm is coming through loud and clear.

“It’s working isn’t it?”

Bucky’s tempted to say no just to spite Steve a little, but Steve also looks a little like he really does hope his horrible attempts at pep talking Bucky are working.

“Yeah, Steve, it’s workin.” Bucky says and Steve, who is somehow different and still the same smiles and it’s 1939 all over again.

 

✮✮✮

 

Sharon shows up three months and twenty-nine days into Bucky coming home to Steve’s apartment.

She takes one look at Bucky, curled up on the couch under a heap of blankets and flipping through a romance novel with two incredibly muscle bound men with a woman between them and HER TWO MEN _In Tahiti_ splashed across the front, then one look at Steve, the newspaper in hand as he works on the crossword. Then, with all the dramatics that Steve has come to expect of Sharon, she grabs hold of Steve’s foot and drags him out of his chair.

“What the _fuck?”_ Steve squawks as he lands on his ass on the hardwood floor of his living room.

Bucky has made no move aside from turning a page in his book, clearly deeming Sharon no real threat to Steve. Which is laughable, because Sharon’s a _huge threat._ Just maybe not to Steve.

“We’re going out.” Sharon says, turning on her heel and heading towards Steve’s bedroom where Steve is absolutely sure she’ll be digging through his clothes in a matter of minutes. “All three of us! Romanoff and Hill’ll be there too.” She tacks on over her shoulder before Steve can protest.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Steve insists, flopping backwards to lay on the floor, a visible sign of his defiance in the face of Sharon Carter.

“That’s the _problem_. You’ve been cooped up in here with tall, dark, and scary -no offense Barnes- for the past four months. It’s not good for you. It’s not good for either of you. And frankly, it’s not good for _me._ I hate the CIA and I haven’t had a chance to properly bitch about it. Hill gets all ‘You want something to complain about? Try working for Stark.’”

“We’re not cooped up. We go _out.”_

“We went to a diner last night.” Bucky says, eyes still focused on his book. His arm whirs as he taps his fingers against the back of it.

“I wasn’t there, doesn’t count.” Sharon says as she emerges and throws a change of clothes at Steve’s head. “Go put on something presentable Barnes. I’d find something myself, but I’m betting you have better security in your room than Rogers here.”

“Steve has _no_ security.” Bucky says, tone judgemental.

“I _know.”_ Sharon says, just as judgemental, “It’s like he’s not even an agent.”

“That’d be because I’m _not._ Funny thing, when the company that employed me turned out to be nazis I ended up unemployed.”

 

✮✮✮

 

Going out with Steve’s friends proves… _interesting._ It takes Bucky _a lot_ of alcohol to feel anything these days, and he’s generally against drinks given to him by random people, but Steve accepts every drink Carter hands him and is also apparently a goddamn lightweight.

Bucky doesn’t remember him being a lightweight, but Bucky’s memory isn’t exactly the bar against which he measures his current life. It’s all swiss cheese up there and there’s certainly more he forgets than he remembers.

“It’s his meds.” Natasha says, red hair swinging as she leans forward on her elbows next to Bucky, her eyes tracking Steve, Carter, and Hill on the dance floor. Steve is not a particularly good dancer, but he’s apparently trying to make up for it with drunken enthusiasm.

“What?” Bucky doesn’t spare her as much attention as he probably should, not with how dangerous the Widow is, but Steve’s surrounded on all sides and compromised. There’s no _not_ keeping watch.

“They changed his meds a while back. The new ones intensify the effects of alcohol.”

“How do you know?” Bucky doesn’t mean to sound accusing, but he’s not sure he doesn’t _not_ mean to sound accusing.

“We’re friends. Funny thing, friends tend to tell each other things.” Natasha says, then seems to change her mind and adds, “At least they do when they’re Steve. Also it was hard not to find out when he got drunk on jello shots at Hill’s.”

“ _Jello shots.”_ Bucky repeats, and this time he knows he means the judgement.

“We former SHIELD agents are classy people Barnes.” Natasha says, somehow sniffing elegantly even while covered in what is possibly a whole craft store’s worth of glitter.

Bucky’s sure he’s supposed to say something back, something snarky or amusing or vaguely insulting in a way that’s a joke, but he ends up quiet for too long, the words lost to him for the moment, his attention split between Steve, who is surrounded by unknowns but also has Hill and Carter on either side of him, watching his six, and Natasha Romanoff who is surely lethal despite her glitter and heels and dress that is certainly not conducive to combat situations.

“I remember you,” He says after a long moment of silence, “Bits and pieces.” Sometimes it feels like trying to look at one of those magic eye books Steve had shown him, but he has little scraps of knowing her, small and delicate and lethal despite her age, one of many little spiders.

He remembers, in a strange way, forgetting and then knowing again.

He remembers years later shooting a mark straight through her and not knowing her at all, not even a little bit.

If Natasha is surprised she doesn’t show it, instead flashing a smile like a shark, “I remember too,” She says, before she seems to pull herself in, remembers Bucky isn’t a threat, or at least isn’t one now, the shark smile fading into something more genuine, and somehow a little sympathetic. It’s strange to think of receiving sympathy from a Widow, “Bits and pieces.”

“You didn’t get everything back?” Bucky asks, not sure if he’s hoping some memories will stay buried, or struck by the thought that they might.

“Oh no, I remember everything. I was just a child though, and memories fade. I’m happy for it. I try to let those memories rest.” Natasha says, sounding honest and surprisingly gentle.

“I want them.” Bucky says after a long moment, then nods a little as though he’s confirming it to himself. “Yeah, I want them. They’re not half as bad as some of the shit I remember.”

“Well, we were pretty damn cute.” Natasha says with a grin, something in the air seeming to change. There’s less weight to the words now, like Bucky somehow sucked away the tension he hadn’t even realized was there.

“Oh yeah, as cute as an army of highly trained killer 8 year olds could ever be.” Bucky agrees with a roll of his eyes.

“Even cuter.” Natasha says with a firm nod, then she’s on her feet and holding both hands out to Bucky. “C’mon, stop playing guard duty. If you dance with me it might even make Steve, dare I say it, _happy.”_

It’s a low blow, because wanting Steve happy seems to be the one thing that Bucky remembers as an absolute, but he also knows for a fact the old James Buchanan Barnes had always been up for a spin around the dance floor, so he takes Natasha’s hands and lets her lead him out there.

 

✮✮✮

 

Steve wakes up with a blinding headache and Sharon’s foot in his face.

He groans a groan of the truly suffering and attempts to shove Sharon’s foot away, rolling his eyes when he hears a snort from the doorway.

He immediately regrets it because the motion of his eyeballs makes him feel like he’s _actually_ dying.

“Super serumed people who can’t experience hangovers don’t get to laugh at their best friend’s misery.” Steve insists, ever so carefully turning his head to look at where Bucky’s in the doorway, looking like he finds this whole thing far too hilarious.

“I tried to stop you.” Bucky says, which sounds like a lie, and then “But you kept insisting you could drink Sharon under the table because of your Irish roots or some other bullshit like that.” Which doesn’t sound like a lie but Steve’s going to pretend it is.

“Lies,” He says, “Lies and untruths.”

“Sure, that’s what we’ll call them.” Bucky says, accompanied by Sharon letting out a loud snore and shoving her limbs out towards the furthest corners of the bed.

Steve gets smacked in the face with a foot and an elbow nearly goes into his spleen so he surrenders in the face of his bed being conquered and rolls out of the bed, landing in a heap of blankets on the floor.

“Out of curiosity, why is Sharon in my bed?” Steve asks, peering up at Bucky from the floor and debating the merits of getting up. On one hand, getting up means coffee. On the other, getting up means he can’t become a living, breathing, hungover blanket burrito.

Bucky makes the decision for him, grabbing Steve under the armpits like an unruly toddler and lifting him onto his feet. Steve feels like he should be a little more offended than he is, but also it’s taken a whole step out of the process of getting coffee.

“Because Hill took the couch.” Bucky says like that’s a perfectly reasonable reason.

“Yeah, okay, that makes sense.” Steve says, stumbling his way from his room and into the kitchen where he can already smell the sweet, sweet smell of coffee. “You’re a _hero.”_ Steve says earnestly as Bucky shoves him down into a chair and gets him a cup of coffee like the true saint that he is.

“That’s me. Former assassin, current superhero.”

“Mmmhmmm.” Steve agrees, practically flopping facefirst into his coffee cup like maybe he can drink it through osmosis.  

Half a cup into his coffee he feels somewhat like a normal person. His head is still pounding and his stomach wants to murder him for the amount of alcohol and greasy food a night out involves, but he feels at the very least semi functional.

Maria, who is sitting on Steve’s couch with the largest mug Steve has, a laptop in her lap and her earpiece already in is clearly beating him though.

Steve wastes very little time in refilling his cup then joining her on the couch and shoving his feet into her lap, making Maria juggle her coffee and laptop for a moment before setting the laptop right back down on top of Steve’s feet.

“Aren’t you supposed to be off?” He asks, clutching his mug between his hands like it’s some sort of lifeline. Bucky’s still at the kitchen counter, watching Steve with a look that Steve can’t quite decipher. Steve tries not to think about it. They’ve more or less reached a point where if something is bothering Bucky, he knows he can talk about it. And if it’s just Bucky’s brain pulling up more facts about the Before, then most the time it’s best just to leave him to it.

“There’s no such thing as a day off when you’re working for Stark.” Maria says, like this is the absolute most tiring thing she has to deal with in her life. “Yes Stark, that’s Steve. No I’m not-”

Steve cuts her off by stealing her earpiece and shoving it in his own ear, Tony Stark’s voice suddenly clear.

“-Rogers that if he comes and works for me I’ll hook him up with some of my best-”

“Stark.”

“Steve! My man, my buddy, my pal, small soldier. You never call, you never write, I’m starting to feel neglected.”

“We talked barely a week ago.”

“Which is an eternity in Stark time, Captain Matryoshka, you know this.”

“Right. Call me when I’m not hungover. Now it’s Maria’s day off so I’m hanging up on you.” Steve says, taps the button to turn off Maria’s ear piece and then tosses it onto the coffee table.

“That should hold him off for at least a few hours.”

“My hero.” Maria says dryly, through her eyes crinkle in a smile above her coffee cup.

 

Bucky’s strange looks make more sense later, when Steve’s gotten up to get more coffee and Bucky corners him and finally asks “Is this- Was this what your life was like before?”

There’s something to Bucky’s tone, a dip in his voice and a twist to his lips, a certain look in the eyes that makes Steve think he’s about to head into some stupid guilt trip over this.

“Sometimes.” Steve says, shrugging, “Sometimes it was like this and sometimes it wasn’t and I was lonely as hell. Always, _always_ though, every minute of every fucking day I missed you like it was a goddamn bullet wound so stop looking at me like you’re _sorry_ for showing back up in my life.”

“Jesus fuckin Christ Rogers, you’re so damn dramatic.” Bucky says, and it’s half hearted at best but he doesn’t look like he’s midway to spiraling into guilt so Steve considers it all a job well done.

 

✮✮✮

 

Steve apparently has a standing meeting with Hill and Carter at the shooting range that he’s picking up again now that Bucky’s prodded him into hanging out with his friends.

Bucky’s not regretting it. He’s _not._ So what if he’s not sure what to do with Steve not there? That’s perfectly okay and is not at all a sign that Bucky wishes Steve had stayed in with him.

He nearly jumps out of his skin when his phone rings.

“Barnes.” A cheerful, _familiar_ voice comes through when he answers.

“What do you want Romanoff?”

“Come out with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“To spray paint hammers and sickles on random buildings. Viva La Communism, long live the motherland.” It’s delivered in such a serious tone it _must_ be a joke.

“Do you think the Red Room fucked your brain up or do you think you woulda always turned out this fucking weird?” Bucky asks before he even registers he’s going to say the words.

Natasha snorts, a breath of a laugh that’s audible clearly through the phone. “My SHIELD appointed therapist said that a weird sense of humor is a perfectly healthy coping mechanism for past trauma. To be fair he also turned out to be HYDRA so who the hell knows.”

“Ouch. Ever worry he programmed you?” He thinks maybe that’s too far to take a joke, but Natasha just makes that same sort of breath of laughter noise.

“I’m about 82% sure I’m not secretly some sort of sleeper agent, so no, I don’t think he programmed me. If I am we’ll have Steve hit me upside the head with his shield. It seemed to do wonders for you.”

“It’s weirdly effective. I don’t recommend the lump you’ll end up with on the back of your head though. Even with the serum that was a bitch and a half.” Bucky says, and then “Send me coordinates and I’ll meet you wherever you want.”

Natasha does.

 

Forty minutes later Bucky’s at a table in the middle of a mall food court, eating a slice of pizza while Natasha slurps noisily at a truly disgusting looking smoothie.

“Why the hell are we at the _mall?”_

“Are you not enjoying yourself?” Natasha asks.

“Yes. I’m having a horrible time.” Bucky lies and takes a bite out of his pizza.

It’s the wrong thing to say, because a few minutes later he’s been unceremoniously shoved into a dressing room with a stack of clothes.

“I don’t need clothes.” He tells Natasha as he comes out of the dressing room for what Natasha insists is a mandatory showing off of each outfit. She makes a twirling gesture with her finger and Bucky obliges, showing off the dark blue blazer, white t-shirt, and jeans.

He’s not sure it’s something he’d pick for himself, but he guesses it’s an alright outfit overall. He definitely doesn’t look _bad_ in it.

“You clean up nice Barnes. And you _do_ need clothes. I haven’t seen you in anything not sweatpants or Steve’s.”

“I happen to like sweatpants.”

“Uh-huh. Now shoo, try on something else. Put the jeans and the t-shirt in a yes pile and the blazer in a no pile.”

Bucky, despite a distinct urge to ignore the orders on the principal of the matter, does as Natasha says. If he’s free _not to_ follow orders when he wants to, then surely he’s just as free to follow them when he _does._

 

When Natasha deems their mission satisfactorily completed he has seven different bags of clothing from five different stores and Natasha has what appears to be at least twice that many. Everything has been charged to Steve’s credit card and Bucky feels absolutely no guilt about that fact considering the amount of 0s Bucky had seen on the man’s bank statement.

“Now,” Natasha says, waving one hand and a multitude of bags dramatically and damn near hitting a passing child with them in the process, “we pick out something to wear and go to dinner and pretend to be somebody fabulous. I’m thinking a ridiculously wealthy, mysterious Eastern European couple. We might as well lean into it.”

“You know what? Why the hell not.”

 

“I like your new clothes.” Steve says that night. He’s curled into the opposite end of the couch, his reading glasses slipping down his nose repeatedly as he works on the crossword.

Bucky wishes his phone wasn’t across the room so that he could take a picture.

“That’s good, cause me and Natasha spent a whole shitton of your money on them.” Bucky says and commits the sight of Steve’s ridiculous little smile to his memory.

“Good.” Steve says, so earnest that it’s almost a little ridiculous. Bucky commits that too memory too. “You have fun out with her?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, hooking his ankle over top of Steve’s when he stretches it out across the couch, “Yeah, I actually did.”

 

✮✮✮

 

The quiet of Bucky’s new life is broken when Steve says “Tony created some sort of robots that are trying to destroy the world,” while attempting to get himself into his SHIELD issued tac gear.

“He did _what?”_ Bucky asks, stuck somewhere between horrified disbelief and very intrigued acceptance.

“Yeah, apparently Pepper went on vacation and he’s not great at being a functioning human when that happens.”

“Are any of your friends good at being functioning humans?” Bucky asks, because really, he’s started having his doubts.

“My friends are all either superheros, former SHIELD agents, or both, so I’m gonna go with a pretty solid no.” Steve says, slinging his shield onto his back. He’s been saying that he’s going to pass it on to someone since Bucky got back, but Wilson apparently said no and Steve hasn’t shown any _actual_ signs of being willing to part with it since. “You don’t have to come. You never exactly signed up to fight robots.”

“You’re going right?” Bucky asks, already moving from his spot on the couch and heading in the direction of his room.

“Well, yeah, of course. It’s kind of an all hands on deck kind of situation.” Steve says, trailing after Bucky.

“Then I’m coming.” Bucky says and drags his mattress off the bed frame so that he can get to his guns and tac gear.

 

Bucky doesn’t _want_ to fight, is the crux of it all. He’s been done with wars since he was that shitheaded kid just shipped out, missing home and Steve and hands that were clean of blood.

When it comes down to it, he doesn’t think he _ever_ really wanted to fight. Not in the before, not when he was filled with trigger words and aimed at targets like the world’s best, most obedient weapon. And not now. And god, he kind of revels in that knowledge becoming _certain._

Bucky Barnes fights because _Steve_ does. Because Steve has always waded into situations that were too big for him, but that were worth fighting for, whether it’s Sokovia or HYDRA or the bullies around the block that used to try to beat the shit out of stray cats. They’re things that are worth fighting for, and Bucky might not like fighting, but he knows he’d fight _for_ Steve in a heartbeat.

Because it’s worth it.

Because Steve would never _,_ not in a million years, aim Bucky at something that isn’t.

 

Sokovia is a shit show, and Tony Stark should be banned from _ever_ fucking around with artificial intelligence again, but somehow they come out on top.

And isn’t that a kicker. Fucking _robots._ Bucky and Stark have been on somewhat uneasy terms lately, what with the whole Bucky remembering he killed the guy’s parents thing, but maybe he can get the guy to make him a perfectly safe, not at all tempted to rule the world robot.

“Are you thinking about how much you want a robot?” Steve asks partway through the trip home, slumped over against Bucky’s arm and apparently wise to his game.

“Of course not. Those things are dangerous, Stevie.” Bucky says, the very picture of innocence.

Steve makes a noise like he’s not even close to believing him, and Bucky can’t help the grin that he presses into Steve’s hair to hide it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come chill with me on [tumblr.](http://stevergrsno.tumblr.com/tagged/my-writing) Sometimes I even do things like fill prompts over there.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s all very scientific, something Bucky could plug into a spreadsheet- Column A- instances of Steve looking at me like I’m the last popsicle on a 100-degree day.
> 
> There’s even a hypothesis:
> 
> Research will show that Steve Rogers wants Bucky Barnes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEHOLD, THE LAST CHAPTER! And the official ending of my first Cap WIP. It took forever but it's DOOOONE.

After Sokovia, after a few more fights that Steve wades right into and Bucky follows right after, Bucky safely knows one thing:

Steve still fights like it’s 1939 and he’s trying to prove the whole damn world wrong about him. 

He remembers how it’d been back then, Steve with a chip on his goddamn shoulders and the urge to prove anyone who thinks him weak wrong. He’s changed, just like Bucky’s changed, but he’s still that same schmuck who couldn’t back down from a fight. 

If Bucky’s honest, he doesn’t remember everything, and he’s not sure he ever really will, but he remembers a lot about  _ Steve _ . He remembers the curve of his spine and the rattle of his lungs and the way his knuckles were constantly scraped up and bruised.  

He remembers the way he constantly wanted to kiss Steve, to leave his mouth bruised and gasping and fucking beautiful. 

He remembers the way he never did. He always had too many reasons, too many excuses, too much fear _.  _

He’s not quite sure if the want is the same, if he wants to kiss Steve because the old Bucky did or because of the new Steve that the new Bucky has gotten to know in the 21st century. 

The fear though? That shit’s exactly the same as he remembers. 

 

**✮✮✮**

 

Steve’s gotten used to a lot of things about having Bucky Barnes living with him again. Novels stacked in precarious piles on his table, the milk jug left in the fridge with only a swallow of milk left, empty cereal boxes still in the cupboard, his low level muttering when Steve forgets to do the dishes, and Bucky’s chronic inability to separate the whites from the colors are all things Steve has slowly but surely gotten used to having in his life. 

Other things are also normal. Steve’s inability to look away when Bucky laughs, the thundering of his heart when Bucky slings an arm over Steve’s shoulder, the way it feels like  _ home  _ with Bucky by his side and in his home. 

Bucky, fresh out of the shower and in nothing but a towel, dripping water onto the couch and eating cookie dough straight from the tube while watching Jeopardy is not a sight Steve thinks he’ll  _ ever _ get used to. 

“What is Washington.” Bucky says around a mouthful of cookie dough when the host reads off  _ ‘Before Congress named it for a person, it’s residents wanted to call it the territory of Columbia.’ _

Steve tears his gaze away from where it’s tracking a rivulet of water that’s making it’s way from the ends of Bucky’s hair and down his chest, focusing instead on how disgusting Bucky is when he shoves cookie dough into his mouth like a heathen. 

“You gonna, I don’t know, maybe get dressed instead of dripping all over my perfectly good couch?” 

“Rogers, you got this thing off of craigslist for like 15 bucks, I think it can handle some drips,” Bucky says and Steve shudders, attempting to not think about what else his couch might have been subjected to before he rescued it. 

 

✮✮✮

 

Bucky’s not  _ testing  _ Steve. 

It’s just that maybe,  _ just maybe,  _ he’s started doing things to see how Steve reacts, started watching a little closer when he does so that he can catch it. 

Bucky catalogs the trajectory of Steve’s gaze when Bucky stumbles out of the shower in just a towel, the slow sweep of his eyes over Bucky before they dart up to focus elsewhere, the soft pink flush of the tips of his ears. He files away the prickling feeling on the back of his neck, the sense of being watched when he bends over to reach the lower shelf in the fridge. He watches when Steve, soft with sleep, can’t seem to stop looking at him over coffee in the morning. 

It’s all very scientific, something Bucky could plug into a spreadsheet-  _ Column A- instances of Steve looking at me like I’m the last popsicle on a 100-degree day.  _

There’s even a hypothesis:

_ Research will show that Steve Rogers wants Bucky Barnes. _

And evidence: 

_ The look on Steve’s face when he finds Bucky in the kitchen in the mornings. The look on Steve’s face every day.  _

_ The look on Steve’s face after he smashed something loose in Bucky’s head with that goddamn frisbee of his. _

And then there’s a goddamn conclusion. 

_ Research confirms that the original hypothesis was fucking correct. Steve Rogers does, in fact, look at Bucky Barnes like he is everything good in this world and like he wants to swallow him whole because of it.  _

Bucky’s just not sure what to do about it. 

Mostly he thinks the answer is ‘ _ bask in it until a better answer comes along.’ _

 

A better answer does eventually come along. 

“I think I loved you,” Bucky says over bagels in the park, his eyes tracking a dog as they chase a ball their owner’s throwing. The words seem to bubble up before Bucky gives them permission to, nothing but the past few months worth of knowledge that Steve might not run away from them needed to push them up and out of him. 

“Of course you did, we were best friends,” Steve says, obviously even more distracted with the dog than Bucky is. 

Bucky thinks maybe they  _ should _ get a dog. Steve makes wanting eyes every time they see one and Bucky’s gotten used to the feeling that’s settled in his chest, the one that urges him to fight heaven and earth to give Steve whatever he wants. A dog at least doesn’t require even close heaven and earth.  

“No, I **_loved_** you,” Bucky says, emphasis on the words this time, watching Steve make eyes at the dog from the corner his eye.  

“Oh,” Steve says, and Bucky can see the moment he’s processed it, the moment it’s gotten through his thick skull. His eyes pop wider, his gaze swinging from the dog and onto Bucky, something piercing and  _ waiting  _ there.  _ “ _ **_Oh_ ** _.  _ You didn’t, uh, you never said. I didn’t know.” 

“I know.” Because Steve looks at him like he  **_wants_ ** _ ,  _ but it’s always with the sort of look he’s given things he knows he can’t have. 

“And uh, do you still?” Steve asks, somehow seeming careful.

Bucky’s a little tempted to revel in it, in this moment and the fact that he can even have it, but it also feels wrong to leave Steve waiting. 

“You think I’d be bringin it up if I didn’t?” 

“I don’t know, Buck. Sometimes you say ‘Stevie, I think I might’ve liked cabbage soup,’ and then we get you cabbage soup and you act like the culinary world has just committed a mortal sin against you.” 

Which, okay, valid point, but also, “Cabbage soup  _ is  _ a mortal sin committed against me.” 

Steve looks far from impressed by that answer. 

“You ain’t cabbage soup, Stevie,” Bucky says, sliding an arm around Steve’s shoulders and pulling him in tight like maybe that’ll prove it.  

 

✮✮✮

 

Steve’s pretty sure that at least something is supposed to change when your best friend admits they’ve been in love with you for at least seventy years. Even if that admitting is done in a roundabout way. Except nothing does. Bucky had said what he’d said and then declared that he wanted ice cream from the place on the corner and then there’d been errands to run, and about the time they’d finished those Nat had called him in on a blackout op that had taken three weeks of Steve and Nat sweating their asses off in the damn desert and that had been that.  

So really, the world kept turning, everything was perfectly normal, and there wasn’t exactly time to address any of it anyway. 

 

When Steve gets home he’s exhausted, there’s sand in places sand  _ really  _ shouldn’t be, and he’s more than a little grumpy that he’s ended up in a goddamn sling. He hadn’t even gotten injured on the mission. No, a fucking  _ flight of stairs  _ had taken him out. 

He feels like  _ Clint _ . 

Bucky’s twisted up like a pretzel on a mat in the middle of the living room and Steve takes a moment to stare and appreciate the fact that Bucky’s therapist had recommended yoga. 

She  _ really  _ deserves to be paid more. 

Bucky peers up at Steve from his pretzel position and frowns, eyebrows going flat. “What happened to you?” 

“Saving the world’s a dangerous gig.” Steve says solemnly, folding himself onto the ground in front of Bucky’s yoga mat. Yoga’s definitely a spectator sport, right? 

“You fell?” 

“Yep. Right down a flight of stairs. Nat filmed it.” 

Bucky drops out of his yoga position and grabs his phone, pausing the soothing voice instructing him to “breathe deeply and spring into Sirsasana’ and then typing rapidly. 

“Oh god, she  _ did  _ film it,” Bucky says a moment later and then there’s the sounds of Steve swearing as he tumbles down a flight of stairs and Natasha laughing hysterically in the background. 

Bucky turns the phone around to face Steve. 

“Oh,  _ god.”  _ It’s a  _ goddamned twitter post.  _

“You have over 10 million views,” Bucky says, sounding delighted. 

“I hate smartphones,” Steve says mournfully. 

“That’s a lie and you know it,” Bucky replies, clearly not about to take any of Steve’s nonsense. 

“The 21st century is the  _ worst,”  _ Steve continues as though Bucky hasn’t said a word. 

“Oh yeah, computers small enough they fit into our  _ hand _ , gay rights, and modern medicine are the worst.” 

“That’s all great, but at  _ what cost?” _ Steve asks, flopping back against Bucky’s yoga mat and coincidentally, against Bucky himself. 

“The cost of Natasha having a whole twitter thread entitled Captain America Fails,” Bucky says, patting at Steve’s head sympathetically. “There’s 23 videos here. People love them. This one is captioned ‘Freedom Isn’t So Free facepalm emoji american flag emoji’” Bucky adds cheerfully, holding his phone in front of Steve’s face so he can see. 

“ _ Ugh,”  _ Steve says emphatically and twists until he can shove his face into Bucky’s stomach and maybe take a much needed post mission nap. 

Bucky, because he’s the best person Steve knows, lets him stay there, warm and safe and tucked into Bucky’s space with Bucky’s hand carding through Steve’s hair and the sound of Bucky tap-tap-tapping away on his phone with the other above him. 

 

Steve wakes up on the couch with a blanket tucked around him, his hearing aid on the table beside him and a post it note stuck to his forehead. 

When he peels it off it says  _ ‘In the kitchen.’  _

Steve wiggles out from under the blanket and stumbles into the kitchen, stopping for a moment in the doorway to watch Bucky wiggle a little to music coming from the tinny speakers of his phone while he cooks. 

Steve leans against the doorjamb and thinks that time has been cruel to the both of them, but it’s also given him this- Bucky Barnes in his kitchen, Natasha Romanoff posting stupid videos of him on the internet, Sharon Carter calling him every other night to bitch about whatever new stupid thing her superior did, and everything and everyone else good that’s come out of this ridiculous life of his picking back up again after being paused for 70 odd years. 

He gets to look at Bucky and thinks  _ ‘yes’  _ and  _ ‘thank you’,  _ and  _ ‘god, I do love him.’  _

“You told me you loved me,” Steve says, and Bucky doesn’t startle, not really, but he does set his spoon down, turns down the heat on the stove, and turns to face Steve. 

“Yeah. That I did Stevie.” Bucky says, soft.

“And that you still do,” Steve says, stepping into the kitchen entirely, stepping closer. 

“Yeah. Yeah. I do.” 

“Oh. That’s what I thought. That’s good, y’know?” Steve keeps pressing forward, slow but sure under Bucky’s gaze. 

“Yeah?” Bucky asks, a smile spreading across his face. 

“Yeah. Cause see, the thing is, I might love you too.” 

“Might?” Bucky’s hands catch on Steve’s hips when he gets close enough, tugging him closer. 

Steve knows at least a dozen ways to get out of a grip like this if he really wanted to, but he lets himself be dragged closer, slides his hands up onto Bucky’s chest and feels himself grin up at him. 

“Maybe a little bit more than might,” He relents, tipping his head up up up while Bucky dips down until they meet in the middle, a clash of lips and Steve’s nose against Bucky’s. 

Bucky laughs right into Steve’s face, takes Steve’s chin in his hand and kisses him properly.

Steve’s had a few first kisses in his life. Not an incredibly huge amount, but enough to know that as far as first kisses go,  _ god _ , this is a good one. 

He knows fireworks is what people search for when it comes to these things, but this feels more like coming home. Like hot chocolate and Bucky’s arm around on his shoulder on a cold day. 

Like finding Bucky over and over again, until the end of time. 

Like the curve of Bucky’s smile on a slow sleepy morning, or his face when Steve wakes him up with pancakes. 

Like Bucky. 

Like  _ Bucky. _

 

✮✮✮

 

Steve doesn’t waste much time in getting Bucky exactly where he seems to want him and exactly where Steve wants him to be seems to be stumbling into Steve’s bedroom. 

Bucky is more than okay with it. He’s fucking  _ great  _ with it even. He decides pretty suddenly that Steve shoving Bucky onto a bed is absolutely a thing that should have been happening for years now.

“Your arm’s broken,” Bucky says, because he feels like there should be at least a token protest here, because, well, his arm is fucking  _ broken.   _ Bucky heals pretty quick these days, but Steve doesn’t and he’s pretty sure that whatever vigorous activities might be planned up in that head of his can’t be good for that shit.  

“Uh-huh. So we’ve got two good arms between us,” Steve says and Bucky laughs so hard Steve has to kiss him stupid to shut him up. 

“I love you,” He says when Steve pulls back. To hear the shape of it. Because he  _ does.  _ Because Steve survives missions only to break his arm on a flight of stairs. Because he’s not afraid to make stupid jokes about Bucky’s battle wounds. 

“So you’ve said,” Steve says, and he’s fucking gorgeous, looking down at Bucky from above him, balanced with his good hand against Bucky’s chest. 

There are at least a dozen different ways to dislodge and incapacitate Steve from where he’s on top of Bucky and Bucky’s brain runs through every one of them. 

There is at least one way to keep Steve exactly where he is and Bucky makes that mission priority number one. A hand to the back of Steve’s neck, a gentle tug and another crash of Steve’s mouth against his own. 

_ Mission Success.  _

Results? More than fucking acceptable. 

 

✮✮✮

**EPILOGUE**

✮✮✮

There comes a day when Bucky says “I have a surprise for you,” completely out of the blue and proceeds to lead Steve onto the subway. 

He refuses to answer any questions about where they’re going, only insisting that Steve will like it. Steve does some ridiculous bristling thing where he huffs a few times like Bucky is truly paining him by not telling him what they’re doing, but Bucky holds strong. 

(He also maybe enjoys Stupid Bristly Steve. He has a type. That type is every version of Steve Rogers.)  

When they get to the shelter Bucky, with all the grace of someone bestowing a great gift, says “Pick any dog you want,” and tries not to look too terribly smug when Steve’s eyes light up. 

 

The sign for the dog lists its name as  _ Dude  _ and under ‘ _ Breed(s):’  _ there’s a list of about a dozen different things, followed by a giant hand-drawn question mark in bright pink ink. The dog itself is large and white and fluffy and has red ears and red patches on his feet and when Steve reads the tag out loud they discover the thing has jaw issues, hip issues, and a whole heap of allergies. 

Bucky thinks he’ll fit in just fine. 

When Steve steps into the room Dude shoves right into Steve’s legs and demands head scratches. 

“I’m in love,” Steve says. 

“We’ll take this one,” Bucky tells the young woman who’s been leading them around. 

“He’s a little… boisterous.” The woman warns. 

“ _ I love him,”  _ Steve says, bending to wrap his arms around the dog when it launches itself onto its hind legs and leans against Steve. 

“He loves him,” Bucky says with a shrug, bending down to let the dog sniff at him before he sinks his fingers into soft fur to give him a scritch.  

The dog shoves it’s head against Bucky’s leg and Steve tips his head against Bucky’s shoulder and okay, maybe he loves the dog a little too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come chill with me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/attackofthezee) or [dreamwidth](https://stevergrsno.dreamwidth.org/)!

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out with me on [tumblr! ](http://stevergrsno.tumblr.com/tagged/my-writing)


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